Mobilink Equips Marginalized Youth with Tools to Shape Their Future
Mobilink has successfully completed its nationwide ‘ICT Enhancement Program’ in partnership with Pakistan Center for Philanthropy (PCP). Under the program, Mobilink has set up six states of the art ICT labs in its partner schools to ensure youth from marginalized communities are equipped to thrive in the fast evolving digital economy.
This initiative, launched five months ago, saw Mobilink and PCP join hands to identify schools in need of ICT labs, with PCP being made responsible for ensuring that the recipients are serving marginalized social classes. PCP’s involvement also made the process transparent and impartial. The program will now reach out to almost 3500 deserving students of primary and secondary schools operating in rural and peri-urban areas every six months.
The schools who have received these ICT labs are Nasra School – Karachi, Govt. Girls High School – Bagh AJK, Zunaira Mallah School – Hyderabad, Read Foundation Higher Secondary School – Gilgit, Government Girls High School – Quetta, and HDF Model School – Mardan.
According to Omar Manzur, Head of Corporate Communications – Mobilink, the Telco continues to ensure all objectives set under its ‘Make Your Mark’ initiative are carried forth on a continuous basis with proper planning. “Mobilink aims at promoting innovation, integration, and inspiration in a bid to ensure the initiatives carried out under our ‘Make Your Mark’ program is providing maximum support to a variety of beneficiaries in Pakistan. The ultimate objective of MYM is enabling a generation of educated and tech-literate young people, a goal which will be achieved with the continued implementation of our ‘ICT Enhancement Program’ across the country,” he stated.
“I would also like to applaud the contribution of our partner Pakistan Center for Philanthropy, Mobilink’s Regional Mentors and Torchbearers in the successful implementation of the project. The recognition that Mobilink’s social investments so frequently receive locally and internationally is a reflection of hard work and dedication that goes into managing our community foot print in the regions,” Omar Manzur further added.
The overall aim of Mobilink’s latest social investment is to contribute towards the academic nurturing of young scholars who will become part of the emergent digital economy and to establish a generation of successful entrepreneurs who can provide for themselves and their families. With the addition of the 6 recently established labs, Mobilink has now established a total of 11 computer labs in various educational institutions across the country.
This ‘ICT Enhancement Program’ was launched in line with VimpelCom’s global ‘Make Your Mark’ initiative, a key element of VimpelCom’s corporate responsibility strategy, with the objective of ‘Helping young people shape their future’. It aims to provide young people with technology tools, support and mentoring, and in some cases access to basic education, to help them tackle these challenges at an individual, community, and national level – to shape their future.
